Thursday, 16 September 2010

So in the pub the other night - people-watching, like one does. At the table next to us, a couple. We decided (after they'd gone, we're not animals, for God's sake) that they were either a long-married couple on the verge of meltdown ("You bastard, Adrian, I told you not to gamble away the solar panel subsidy!!!") OR on a first date where they had both been grossly misrepresented, either by mutual friends ("They said you looked like Brad Pitt!" "Well they said you looked like someone off Strictly Come Dancing, but they didn't mention it was Anne Widdecombe!") or themselves ("Fun-loving curvy blond/e... loads of personality... my mum says I'm handsome..." fill in gap).At some point during the starter I turned to my brother-in-law, who takes us out to dinner regularly to thank us for allowing him to occasionally sleep on the cardboard placemat we like to call a spare bed (for work purposes only - he has a very nice family up North). I said "Are you covered in Vicks?". In my defence, he hadn't been feeling well. He was slightly taken aback, and said no, so I remained mildly confused. Until the angry couple left, after having spent most of the evening (while they weren't glaring at each other) texting other people. And I realised it was her perfume, namely (and I will name names) "Pomegranate Noir" by Jo Malone.Don't get me wrong, I like it, especially on my friend Nix, but it is boldly heavy on what it claims to be opoponax (??? answers on a postcard), pepper, and patchouli. These are its claims, but I say there's a truckload of eucalyptus in there too. In large and over-optimistic first-date splash-it-all-over amounts, it smells of Vicks Vaporub. Or a koala, startled in the act of shoplifting some Vicks Vaporub and a pomegranate. And why not, if I was Jo Malone I'd use some high-flown word like "opoponax" rather than "Vicks".At this moment I wondered whether their burgeoning relationship could have been salvaged if he hadn't got all the wrong olfactory signals, and either thought she had flu or was perhaps an aggressive man.

I'm going to blame my increasing deafness on waxy build-up (sorry, if you're eating) and the poor acoustic quality of the average restaurant/pub. I never seem to have problems at home or, mostly, at work. But I have been suffering from what I can only call "Freudian deafness" for years - in my previous career in Frenchish Airways I spent a lot of time on the phone and had to double-check the obvious mispronunciations : "Caen" instead of "Cannes", "Dakar" for "Dhaka", and on one memorable occasion something that could have been Biarritz, Bayreuth or Beirut. The travel agent wasn't sure which one the customer wanted (my tip? Don't book with them EVER), so I ended up saying "Do they want surfing, opera or bomb-craters?". She didn't know that either. It was a 66% chance the customer ended up in the wrong place.I also frequently mis-heard the word "y-fronts" for the far more commonly used "reference" ("If I could just take down your y-fronts for this booking?"). Oh, the hilarity.The end result of constantly saying "Sorry, could you repeat that?" is, inevitably, that your ears get lazy and you say it to everything. But it helps if at least the context is an indication of where the conversation should have been going - after all, y-fronts rarely get mentioned in the context of booking an airline ticket. Mr F and I went out for dinner on Saturday, to a fantastically nice (if slightly pricey) old-school proper Italian restaurant (osso bucco, Chianti, rabbit ragu, that kind of shenanigans) and while it was lovely, the acoustics were slightly trying. And at one point, while he was attempting to discuss burning news issues of the day (Koran-burning, in fact), I said "Sorry?" once too often. "THE PASTOR, THE PASTOR!!!" he yelled. Three waiters looked up in panic. Try saying it aloud. It wasn't just me.

Monday, 13 September 2010

The "posting regularly" issue seems to be a tricky one for me. I promise I'll start again now the days are chillier and there's less to do in the sun at lunchtime. In the meantime, here is a picture of my lovely new socks, which I was forced to buy as shoes now seem to be obligatory. I miss my FitFlops.

Today (13th May 2016) I am mostly:

wondering if I can get to Tesco's and back for a sandwich without missing the afternoon book delivery (what are the odds)

reading "Archie" (the reboot of the 60s comic) by Mark Waid (Daredevil) and Fiona Staples (Saga). I was never, I should add in self-defence, an Archie fan, but the idea of it being all Sunnydaled up is intriguing. If you're a nerd.

wearing "Lys Mediterranee" by Frederic Malle. It's like I've beaten you to death with a bunch of lilies, and you liked it.

unable to stop singing "Cielito Lindo" (aka "the AI YI YI YIII song"), thanks to a violin-playing busker who has been playing variants of it outside for the last 4 hours.

About Me

A veritable dustbin of sparkly factoids. Don't let the fact that I smoke Gauloises put you off. It's a habit, not an indication of moral turpitude. I like anything in a martini glass too.
I used to say I hated politics, sport and reality TV. Then the Olympics happened. Now I just hate politics and reality TV.
My favourite quote is "Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing?" (Lloyd Cole, for you Google searchers). Optimist by nature, pessimist by experience. Oh, and I'm a ginger.

Strange and oddly unrelated Google searches by which people have found my blog...

"pork pie sexual encounters"

"its hard to say words that is not final because many things happen in between"

"Fodens reliable ant"

"my wife say to ex i love you and to me say i love you"

"Frankie Boyle 2p sausage"

"crayon book pictures channelled whelk"

and a special apology to anyone who came here following the promise "Lucy has one of the hottest racks on the planet", IT'S NOT ME. THAT'S A WHOLE OTHER WEBSITE. Although my rack is epic in its own smalltown way.

Perfumes I may bankrupt myself buying one day.

He's one of us!!

Now I love him even more. If it turns out he also likes calvados, Nabokov and the TV works of Aaron Sorkin (what are the odds?) I will in fact lay down my life for him.

Role models I channel when necessary

Miss Prothero in "A Child's Christmas In Wales" by Dylan Thomas : "She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?" "

My mother the librarian, who can express displeasure with a very slight widening of the eyes. Invaluable for dealing with the general public.

My late paternal grandmother, a woman who consumed nothing but untipped Senior Service and gin 'n' sherry (aka "alkie's delight") and once drove down a 1:3 hairpin bend in her Reliant Robin with both hands in the air cackling "Of course, I'm COMPLETELY pissed".

Eleanor of Aquitaine - brought literature and table manners to Britain. And a fellow ginger.

Miss Jones from "Rising Damp". ...."Oh, Mr Rigsby, the music's gone to my head like wine!!!"

Lady Colin Campbell

Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, 1857 - 1911. I go and say hello to Gertie Lady C every time I'm near the National Portrait Gallery. The perspective is all wrong, but she's just daring you to have a go. A raised eyebrow says more than a thousand sarcastic put-downs.

Sei Shonagon (c.966 - 1017)

...also a big fan of pointless lists of things, although I have never reached the giddy heights of "Things that look a bit pathetic".

Esteemed Colleagues

Booksellers Anonymous

"Well, to be honest, after years of smoking and drinking, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...You know, just sometimes, in between the first cigarette with coffee in the morning to that four hundredth glass of cornershop piss at 3am, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...this is fantastic. I'm in heaven." - Bernard from Black Books

Fictional men I have had a crush on (in chronological order)

Asterix. I wrote a proposal of marriage, to me, from him, in yellow crayon and presented it to my mother. I was 4 at the time.

Snufkin.

Prince Gwydion of the Sons of Don.

Ged, aka Sparrowhawk, the Wizard of Earthsea (well, one of them).

Tintin. What can I say? I was 6.

Mr Knightley from "Emma". So much more appealing than the rebarbative and snotty Mr Darcy. Always marry your best friend.

Brat Farrar.

Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct.

Tom Ripley, eponymous hero of the Patricia Highsmith series. Not sure if I love him or secretly want to be him (how liberating would it be to just murder some complete stranger on a train because their clothes annoy you a bit?) Envy his cute french wife though.

Amit Chatterji. Honestly, how was he not the most suitable boy?????????

John Constantine, the old Hellblazer himself. Well, it'd be rude not to. He's hot! He's scruffy! He's British! He's a warlock! And he smokes! Although the fact that he seems only to smoke Silk Cut makes him oddly wussy.

Charlie Parker - not the jazz musician, the private eye from "Every Dead Thing" et al. Traumatised. Psychic. Mind you the fact that I have a crush on John Connolly, the author, may have a bearing on this.

Berry Rydell from "Virtual Light". Endearingly shambolic.

King Mob from "The Invisibles". Buff, bald, a trained assassin, and an inveterate quoter of The Kinks.

Dexter Morgan, unapologetic (nay, gleeful) serial killer from "Darkly Dreaming Dexter". The TV series got him wrong, even if it was great viewing. Should have been Brendan Fraser.

"Angel" by Thierry Mugler. Vile. Smells of the cat-hair-covered toffee you find down the back of the sofa. Also of ageing and desperate cabin crew.

The "Toast" catalogue. Smells of linseed oil and old haddock. WHY??? What are they printing it on? Or with???

Wet Barbour jackets, and don't kid yourself otherwise, Tarquin.

Things people do that make me want to slap them.

Shout "I can't believe you're doing this to me" at a traffic warden who is, usually deservedly, giving them a ticket. Believe it, love, the evidence is right before you.

Preface a question with "Question!"

Get grumpy about "too much choice" in bookshops etc. What the hell does "too much choice" mean??? I've started saying cheerfully "Absolutely! Bring in a totalitarian Communist state and you'll just have one book which you'll HAVE to read!"

Sulk. Irritating in a small child, positively BACKWARD in anyone over 15.

Use phrases like "it's not in my skill set" when they mean "I'm too idle/self-important to learn". Lucinda Ledgerwood, come on dowwwwwn!!